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52 ‘Madame et très chère amie – je vous remercie de votre souvenir – j’ai été assez heureux pour sauver mon pays de l’anarchie mais il faut le tirer maintenant des horreurs de l’incendie.’ Although undated, the letter that is probably the earliest in the collection, almost certainly written in 1818, from Jacques Laffitte, banker and statesman, contains the only sour note. Laffitte reports to James about a meeting that has taken place during the morning (Thursday, 21 May) to discuss the scope of foreign houses operating in France. James’s wish to participate in a state loan, notes Laffitte, is seen as a threat to the dignity of the government, undermining the character of benevolence and nationality that he and his group want to bring to the financial operation. The context for this letter can be found in Niall Ferguson’s account of events at the time.³ Ferguson refers to Laffitte’s memoirs, in which he claims that James was excluded from the French reparations loan in 1817 explicitly on religious grounds, primarily at the instigation of Alexander Baring. James explored the motives of his rivals in letters to his brothers and concluded that Laffitte himself was not the enemy. ‘I am having another meeting with Laffitte tomorrow and then I shall write and tell you how everything stands and you can write and say whether we should come forward on our own or not. Laffitte is proving to be a good man, indeed a very decent and worthy man for whom we must have every respect. His word is sacrosanct. He has promised that I should do it with him in partnership and so he has told the others, “If Rothschild is not included, I will go and make an offer to Rothschild on my own”’.⁴ The remainder of the letters addressed directly to James demonstrate the distance the ‘foreigner’ has travelled since those days and underline his skill in steering a steady course through revolutionary times. ‘There is but one power in Europe, and that is Rothschild’, wrote French socialist Alexandre Weill. ‘He no longer needs the State, but the State still has want of him’. And not just the French state. Francisco Martinez de la Rosa, Spanish Prime Minster, writes in 1834 inviting the Rothschilds to become bankers to the court of Spain and to lay the foundations for public credit; in the following year James’s great interest in the affairs of his country is noted by Portuguese statesman José da Silva Carvalho (letter of 14 November 1835). The warmest relations between the Rothschild family and the Turkish state are declared in letters to James and to Betty. Fuad Pasha, Turkish delegate to the Paris peace conference of 1856 following the Crimean war, wrote to Betty in 1858, noting, ‘J’ai écrit quelque choses en turc dans votre album. Vous m’avez défendu de faire des compliments, mais vous ne pouvez pas m’empêcher de dire la verité’. The sensitivities of diplomacy are acknowledged by Mustafa Reshid Pasha writing in March 1856. He thanks James for sending his son with a letter and for the demonstrations of friendship which it contained. He wishes James to know that his son was received with all the respect that is owed to the Rothschild family, which never ceases to show its sympathies for Turkish interests. The revolution of 1848 left the Rothschild business intact, and the family at the centre of a social circle that was, in part, dispersed by exile. Family correspondence already in the Archive records much of the panic that swept through the ranks of the Paris Rothschilds, with only Charlotte, Baroness Lionel’s phlegmatically-expressed belief that ‘it will never do to give up hope of a brighter European, a Rothschild future’ representing a positive attitude. Several correspondents offer reassurance and even a note of regret. On the notepaper of the Gouvernement Provisoire, Louis Blanc dissociates himself and his government from a printed circular demanding the surveillance of the Rothschilds and that they be compelled to lend money to the government (letter of 29 February 1848). Louis-Eugène Cavaignac writes cordially about arrangements for meetings; Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pagès, mayor of Paris, sends a receipt and note of thanks for James’s subscription of 50,000 francs for the wounded and the workers. The prefect of police, Louis-Marie Caussidière, who ordered James to appear before him on a charge of smuggling bullion out of the country in dung carts, writes from the Market Street Hotel, Philadelphia on 10 February 1854, thanking the former accused for his kindness and services during the writer’s current misfortune.
The services that the Rothschild family provided to their friends and clients is amply demonstrated in many of these letters, perhaps most extensively in those from Prince Metternich, his wife and son. Mélanie, Princess Metternich acknowledges a seemingly endless supply of fabrics and hats which Betty directs to Vienna; the purchase of Parisian gowns on her behalf is also entrusted to Betty. Metternich and his wife reveal the extent of their attachment to Betty’s father, Salomon von Rothschild, in several letters including one of condolence on his death in July 1855. Among the other correspondents is a familiar figure from Rothschild history, Prince Pückler Muskau, the German writer and traveller, who observed Nathan Mayer Rothschild at work in London. Travelling, he reveals here, both explicitly and implicitly, can be something of a trial and a writer’s words can sometimes return to haunt him. In Malta, in February 1836, he reports his assessment that Greece is ‘un pays beaucoup barbare que l’Afrique’, and announces that in spite of no reply to his two previous letters to the Baron he intends to draw 10,000 francs on the Paris house. Perhaps incautiously, in view of his previously expressed statements, he writes to James from Athens later that year, attempting to dig himself out of a small hole. The account of his journey in France has just appeared in translation and he hopes that Betty will not associate him with the badly expressed description of her. The slashes to the pages indicate that the mail has been disinfected, a precaution against the periodic outbreaks of cholera. Occupying just one archival box and representing a tiny proportion of the Archive’s holdings, these letters are evidence of the success of the Rothschild family’s integration into the very heart of French life in the nineteenth century. These testimonies to their constant and sure friendship provide valuable new resources for historians of the period and are all the more welcome additions to the Archive in view of their unexpected discovery. Melanie Aspey joined The Rothschild Archive in 1994 and has been Director since 2004. Notepaper of Orléans House, the Twickenham home of the exiled Henri d’Orléans, Duc d’Aumale. notes 1 ral 000/1618 letter from Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, 7 July 1845 requesting a subscription of 30,000 francs in the Chemin de fer du Nord; letter from Clemens Wenzel, Prince Metternich, 1 December 1831 asking Betty de Rothschild to buy a bird of paradise from a market in Paris for his wife and to send it to Vienna. 2 Laura Schor, The Life and Legacy of Baroness Betty de Rothschild (New York: Peter Lang, 2006), p.105. 3 Niall Ferguson, The World’s Banker: The History of the House of Rothschild (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998), p.152. 4 ral xi/109/9, letter from James de Rothschild to his brothers, 14 February 1818. 53
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The Rothschild Archive review of th
Page 5 and 6: The Rothschild Archive Trust Truste
Page 7: Contents Introduction 7 Eric de Rot
Page 10: Review of the year’s work Melanie
Page 13 and 14: From Henri de Rothschild La lignée
Page 15 and 16: A hitherto unknown photographic ima
Page 17 and 18: A portrait of Lionel de Rothschild
Page 19 and 20: Below Views of the gardens at Ascot
Page 21 and 22: A tiger, from Lionel’s collection
Page 23 and 24: Below Extract from the visitors’
Page 25 and 26: have come to us because they seem t
Page 27 and 28: On 6 March 1907, Arthur J. Fraser o
Page 30 and 31: The Bampfylde Room at Halton, Alfre
Page 32 and 33: professional sport and the gossip c
Page 34 and 35: to enthusiasm, generosity and inven
Page 36 and 37: Egyptian finances in the nineteenth
Page 38 and 39: Receipt from the Bank of Alexandria
Page 40 and 41: of their investments. At the insist
Page 42 and 43: 40 writings by the demonisation of
Page 44 and 45: thirteen tranches of 6 per cent Uni
Page 46 and 47: 44 francs’ worth of 5 per cent Pi
Page 48 and 49: Alexander Herzen in later years. am
Page 50: ‘Si constante et si sûre’: tes
Page 53: Letter to James de Rothschild from
Page 57: Artefacts and portraiture Statuette
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